The End of the Trail Read online

  Quentin left the room, closing the door behind him. There was the sound of a latch being fastened.

  The room was oddly furnished with a long table with several chairs along one side of it. On the table were half a dozen or so old telephones that looked as though they hadn’t been used in a while. Frank picked up a phone receiver and put it to his ear. There was no dial tone.

  “It’s dead,” he said. “Too bad.”

  “What is this place, anyway?” Joe said. “Why all these telephones?”

  “Yeah, Rhonda and I have been wondering about that, too,” Biff said.

  “I think I know,” Frank said. “This place used to be a casino, right?”

  “News to me,” Biff said.

  “Yeah, we discovered the old equipment in the basement,” Joe said. “They’ve got roulette tables, slot machines, the works.”

  “And this room must have been for placing bets,” Frank said. “Not on the gambling in the basement, but on other things, like horse races and sporting events.”

  “You mean, the McSavages were bookies, too?” Joe asked.

  “Sure,” Frank said. “It looks like McSavage’s family had an off-track betting operation a long time before it was legal.”

  “This doesn’t do us any good if we can’t call out,” Biff said, frowning. “I’m sorry, guys. I really got us into a mess.”

  “It’s not your fault, Biff,” Frank said.

  “Oh, I’m not so sure about that,” Joe said jokingly. “If Biff hadn’t hurt his leg—”

  “Ahem!” Phil Cohen cleared his throat loudly. “Maybe these phones can do us some good after all.”

  “Huh?” Joe said. “Only if we hit Quentin over the head with a couple of them.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean,” Phil said. “Look at those wires.”

  Everybody followed Phil’s gaze. All of the phone wires ran through a single round hole in the wall.

  “What about them?” Joe asked.

  “They have to go somewhere, right?” Phil said.

  “Yeah?” Joe shrugged. “So how does that help us?”

  “Look closely at the wall,” Phil said.

  Frank looked. He noticed what appeared to be the outline of a door that had been plastered over. It was directly over the hole where the wires disappeared. “What do you know,” Frank said. “There used to be a closet here.”

  “Not a closet,” Phil said. “A telephone exchange. The phones in this room are old, and it must have required some major equipment to keep all of them working, especially when the betting got heavy. They didn’t have miniaturized electronics when this place was in its heyday.”

  “So what good does that do us?” Joe asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Phil said, “but I’d like to take a look at the equipment. Just because these phones are dead doesn’t mean the equipment doesn’t work. If we can get through that wall, maybe we can manage to make a call out of here.”

  “It’s worth a shot,” Frank said. “Anybody got something I can use to break a hole in that wall?”

  “Try this,” Biff said, holding up a metal crutch. “But don’t break it. I’ll need it if we get out of here.”

  Frank took the crutch and bashed softly at the wall, trying not to make so much noise that Quentin would come running. Paint began chipping off the wall. Finally a hole began to appear in the wallboard about halfway up the wall.

  Frank thrust his fingers through the hole and pulled out chunks of wallboard. The others joined in, and soon they had a hole large enough to walk through.

  The room on the other side of the wall was about the size of a walk-in closet. It had no electric lights, but enough light spilled in from the main room to make the interior of the room visible. Wires were scattered all around, coiled on the floor like snakes and tangled like spiderwebs along the walls.

  “Okay, let me take a look,” Phil said.

  “Better you than me,” Joe said. “A person could get electrocuted in there!”

  Phil stepped cautiously into the room, careful not to trip over the piles of wires. He looked around, studying the dimly lit walls. A look of recognition came over his face.

  “This is an entire telephone switching station,” he said delightedly. “It probably dates back to the 1940s. Every telephone wire in the town must run through this room!”

  “Terrific!” Biff said. “Grab a phone, plug it in, and make a call to somebody who can get us out of here.”

  “It’s not that easy,” Phil said. “I’m not sure what all these wires do. I have to find the central routing circuitry.”

  “Spare us the details,” Joe said. “Just hit a few circuits with a hammer, and I’m sure the phone system will start working like magic.”

  Phil ignored Joe’s sarcasm. He poked around among the wires until he came to a metal box.

  “This may help,” he said. “I’ll just open this door and”—the door of the box popped open—“and have a look around.”

  “What do you see?” Frank asked.

  “Looks like this is what we’re looking for,” Phil said. “I’ll just switch a couple of wires, and I think I can get one of the phones working.”

  “Good job!” Joe exclaimed.

  Phil bustled around with the wires. Suddenly there was a sizzling sound. A bright shower of electric sparks sprayed out of Phil’s hands. With a loud popping noise, Phil was blown right out of the small room, landing on his back next to Frank.

  “Phil!” Frank shouted, crouching over his friend. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah,” Phil said, his face contorted with pain. “Just got a bad shock. Haven’t had that bad a shock since...”

  “Since the last time you tried to fix Frank’s computer?” Joe asked.

  “That one was probably worse,” Frank said. He turned to Phil. “Does this mean we won’t be able to make a call out?”

  “No, no,” Phil protested. “I just have to be more careful.”

  Biff sniffed the air. “Hey, I think they’re cooking something downstairs!”

  Joe wrinkled his nose. “Whatever it is, I don’t want to eat it. Smells like burning rubber.”

  “Uh-oh,” Phil said, pointing into the telephone room. Black smoke started pouring out.

  “Oh, no!” Joe cried. “You’ve set the room on fire!”

  “And,” Frank said, “we’re locked in!”

  12 Smoked Out

  “Water!” Biff shouted. “We need water to put the fire out!”

  “No, we don’t,” Phil said. “It’s an electrical fire. It started when the wires began sparking. I think I caused a short circuit. What we need is sand to throw on the fire.”

  “Great,” Joe said. “I’m sure we’ll find whole dunes of sand in here.”

  “Maybe we can throw something else on it to smother it,” Frank said.

  Phil looked around. “Everything in here is flammable. There isn’t even a rug.”

  Crackling flames could be seen inside the small room. It wouldn’t be much longer before they reached the walls, which would go up like a tinderbox. And the smoke was getting thicker, making it difficult to breathe.

  “My eyes feel like they’re on fire,” Joe said.

  Loraleigh coughed. “My lungs are getting sore.”

  “Everybody get on the floor,” Phil said. “The smoke will rise. We’ll be able to breathe longer if we keep the smoke above our heads.”

  “Longer?” Joe asked. “What do we do when the whole room is full of smoke? Learn to breathe through old telephones?”

  From outside the main door to the room a commotion could be heard. “What’s going on in there?” Quentin’s voice demanded.

  “You know,” Frank said quietly, “I think I’m actually glad to hear that guy’s voice now.”

  The door burst open. Quentin poked his head inside angrily, the Brookburn brothers visible behind him.

  “You’re trying to burn the place down!” Quentin exclaimed. “You thought you could burn your way out of h
ere, didn’t you?”

  “Er, not exactly,” Joe said, then starting coughing.

  “Go to the emergency supply closet and get a bucket of sand,” Quentin said to the Brookburns. He waved a gun into the room. “The rest of you, get out of there. I can’t see you in all that smoke.”

  Frank, Joe, and everybody else rushed gratefully past Quentin and into the hallway, a haze of black smoke following them. The Brookburn brothers came running back to the room, one of them with a bucket of sand in his hand and the other a fire extinguisher.

  “Get that fire out fast,” Quentin yelled at them. “With no fire department, we can’t let it get out of control.”

  He turned the gun back on the Hardys and their friends. “I want you all to head downstairs. Bill McSavage will have a word with you.”

  As the Brookburn brothers worked to put out the fire, the rest marched back down the stairs they had come up twenty minutes earlier. McSavage was standing in the lobby, furious. He looked as if he was about to shout something angry, probably having to do with the fire, but Jack Mason beat him to it.

  “We almost died up there, Bill!” he roared. “And I’m holding you personally responsible!”

  “You idiot, Mason!” Bill roared back.

  “Hey, don’t you call my father an idiot!” Loraleigh shouted.

  “Keep out of this, Loraleigh,” Jack said. “This is between me and my old friend Bill.”

  “You were never my friend,” McSavage said contemptuously. “You were always the goody-goody kid. You never liked working at the casino. I’m surprised you didn’t turn us over to the police then. But now I’m going to take care of you. You and your goody-goody daughter. Like father, like daughter!”

  To everyone’s surprise, Jack Mason grabbed a vase off a table and ran toward Bill McSavage, smashing it over his head. McSavage, stunned, slumped to the floor.

  Quentin rushed automatically toward him. Frank put out a leg, and the man tripped over it, falling to the wooden floor with a thud.

  “Ha!” Biff said, waving one of his crutches in the air. “That’ll take care of them!”

  “Yeah,” Joe said. “For about thirty seconds. Come on, everybody. Let’s get out of here!”

  Quite a parade poured out the front door of the McSavage mansion. Frank and Joe were in the lead, followed by Loraleigh and Jack Mason, Phil Cohen, and Biff bringing up the rear. Biff was limping along on crutches, but moving surprisingly fast with Rhonda at his side.

  “Where to?” Joe asked. “Back to the trail?”

  “No,” Frank said. “They’ll catch us there before we can go half a mile. We need a vehicle.”

  “The armored truck!” Joe said. “I noticed that the keys were still in the ignition.”

  “Perfect!” Frank said. “That way we can take the money out of town with us and hand it to the authorities.”

  They headed down the hill to the old barn, where Frank and Joe had earlier uncovered the truck. Once inside the barn, Joe barred the door, to keep any pursuers out.

  “Okay,” Frank said. “We have to work out seating arrangements. Phil, open the back door of the truck.”

  Phil pulled the door open, gaping at the sacks of money with astonishment.

  “Now get inside,” Frank continued. “Jack and Loraleigh, you can ride back there with Phil.”

  “What about me?” Rhonda asked.

  “You ride up front with Joe and me,” Frank said. “We’ll need directions for getting out of town.”

  Phil, Jack, Loraleigh, and Biff crawled into the back. Phil pulled the door shut.

  “Okay, who gets to drive?” Frank said.

  “You go ahead,” Joe said.

  “Rhonda,” Frank said, “climb in the middle.”

  “The cab on this truck looks pretty cramped,” Rhonda said as she entered through the passenger side door, “but I may be able to squeeze in.”

  Once Rhonda was inside Frank jumped into the driver’s seat and Joe into the passenger seat. Frank cranked the ignition. It made a sputtering noise, then roared to life.

  “Looks like sitting under a pile of hay hasn’t hurt it much,” Joe said. “Sounds ready to go.”

  Frank shifted into gear and moved his right foot onto the accelerator.

  “Um, shouldn’t we open the barn door first?” Joe asked.

  “Not on your life,” Frank said. “Those guys may be waiting right outside. I don’t want to give them any advance warning that we’re on the way.”

  He floored the pedal and aimed the truck toward the bolted wooden doors. The vehicle bucked forward like a racehorse. Joe and Rhonda braced themselves against the dashboard.

  The truck hit the door with a bang that could probably be heard all the way in town. The wooden bolt split in two, and the doors popped open. If anybody had been standing outside, the doors would have knocked them to the ground and put them out of the action for a while.

  But nobody was waiting outside. Frank turned the truck up the hill, toward the main road leading from the mansion to Main Street. But coming down the hill toward the truck was a pair of motorcycles—and the Brookburn brothers were riding them.

  “Uh-oh!” Joe said. “Maybe we’d better find another way out.”

  “They won’t dare try to hit the truck,” Frank said. “It would smash those bikes up pretty good.”

  “It might smash us up, too,” Joe said. “Maybe we should go around in back of the house, over that way.” He pointed to the right.

  “No,” Frank said. “Those guys will swerve first.”

  He continued driving straight up the hill, and the Brookburn brothers continued riding their bikes straight down. The truck whined as it negotiated the slope, but Frank put it in second gear and kept the accelerator floored.

  “Maybe I should point out that I think those guys are crazy,” Joe said.

  The Brookburn brothers kept coming, straight toward the truck. Their eyes were glazed as though they didn’t care if the truck hit them.

  “Good point,” Frank said, swerving to the right just before the Brookburn brothers struck them. Joe heaved a sigh of relief.

  The Brookburn brothers obviously knew how to ride motorcycles, because they had turned and were on the tail of the truck within seconds. Frank drove toward the fields that Joe and the others had seen earlier.

  “Just barrel on through,” Rhonda said. “You’re just driving through tall grass. You’ll flatten it, but it won’t slow you down too much.”

  “Or the motorcycles,” Joe lamented.

  “How come you know about driving through the fields?” Frank asked Rhonda.

  “Let’s just say I did some pretty crazy things when I was your age,” Rhonda said.

  “Probably not as crazy as getting into this situation,” Joe said.

  “Don’t be so sure,” Rhonda said.

  They barely felt a bump as Frank plowed into the gently waving field of tall grass. He scanned the horizon for any sign of another way to get off Bill McSavage’s farm but couldn’t see one. Behind them, the Brookburn brothers plowed through the grass on their motorcycles, hard in pursuit.

  “There’s no other way out,” Rhonda said. “You’ll have to circle the mansion and head back to town.”

  “I was afraid of that,” Frank said.

  The mansion was on their left. Frank turned toward it, and the Brookburns turned with them. After a moment he was out of the field and riding across Bill McSavage’s backyard.

  “Okay,” Joe said. “Just keep heading around the house and we’ll be back on the road to town.”

  “Thanks,” Frank said sarcastically. “You’re better than a compass.”

  “Just trying to help,” Joe said.

  The front of the house came into view. Only a few hundred yards away was the road leading back through the main gates and into town.

  Then something else came into view. A large old black limousine was blocking the road. Inside were Bill McSavage and Quentin.

  13 Road Warriors
r />   “We’re trapped!” Joe shouted.

  “No,” Rhonda said. “Head for the fence. Over there!”

  “Are you nuts?” Frank said. “We’ll bounce off it!”

  “There’s a broken section,” Rhonda said. “Just follow where I’m pointing.”

  Frank did as he was told, though he was reluctant to drive into the fence. The shrubbery on the other side looked pretty thick, too, but the truck just might be able to get through it.

  The truck hit the fence and a large segment of it flew away, disappearing into the bushes. Then they hit a thick wall of green vegetation. There was a horrible crunching noise all around them as the truck snapped the branches of the shrubbery in front of them.

  Then they were out the other side. Frank turned on the windshield wipers to knock off the branches that had become stuck to the window. Then he roared back onto the road and took it to Main Street.

  “Okay, how do we get out of this town?” Frank asked.

  “That way,” Rhonda said, waving her hand. “The other end of Main Street.”

  Frank worried that they were leaving Chet all alone in this town, but knew his friend could ride Formby out. Frank had to save as many people as possible—they could come back for Chet later.

  Frank headed in the direction that was definitely not toward the McSavage mansion. There was another short row of houses along the street, beyond which was a forest, not unlike the one on the other side of town where the path led back to the Appalachian Trail. The road entered the trees and Frank sped along it.

  About a hundred feet into the forest the road forked.

  “Which way do we go?” Frank asked.

  “Maybe it doesn’t make any difference,” Joe said.

  “No, it definitely makes a difference,” Rhonda said. “Go that way,” she said, pointing to the right. Frank thought he saw her hesitate briefly, but he followed her instructions.

  The road was narrow and paved with gravel. Ruts ran along through the trees where cars and trucks had driven for decades. The trees arched over them, forming a sort of canopy, making long and dark shadows.

  There was a roar from behind them. Frank glanced in the sideview mirror. The Brookburn brothers were riding their cycles straight down the ruts in the road, right on their tail.